1.7 Summary

As this chapter shows, the history of the centuries-long effort to document and understand climate change is often complex, marked by successes and failures, and has followed a very uneven pace. Testing scientific findings and openly discussing the test results have been the key to the remarkable progress that is now accelerating in all domains, in spite of inherent limitations to predictive capacity. Climate change science is now contributing to the foundation of a new interdisciplinary approach to understanding our environment. Consequently, much published research and many notable scientific advances have occurred since the TAR, including advances in the understanding and treatment of uncertainty. Key aspects of recent climate change research are assessed in Chapters 2 through 11 of this report.